Making mom cry

The name "ductal carcinoma in situ" has three parts:
* "Ductal" means that the cancer started in the milk ducts.
* "Carcinoma" refers to any cancer that begins in the skin or other tissues (including breast tissue) that cover or line the internal organs.
* "In situ" is Latin for "in its original place." This means that the cancer is non-invasive: it hasn't spread into any normal surrounding breast tissue


The first surgery was last week. Dr. Schuh is supposed to be one of the best breast cancer doctors in St. Louis, I keep hearing from around the grape vine. I don't really like her because she has long hair. But always tucks it under her white lab coat so that it appears like she has shoulder length hair that is curled under like a bob. Well that, and she keeps giving me these annoying diagnostics.

At the surgery center, i suppose they are really careful about not operating on the wrong thing. So every time someone comes in the room they ask you three questions. 1. what is your name 2. what is your birth date, 3. which side are they operating on. I struggle to not say "if you guys don't know then we're both fucked."

During the biopsy, they placed a tiny marker in my right breast to let the surgeon know where start removing. On the day of the surgery they used some Novocaine and injected a needle that they then threaded a wire through. Then removed the needle. Leaving the wire connecting the marker and trailing out of my skin. Then they taped the wire down, strapped me into the gurney, iv, chit chat, followed by a memory erasing injection. The surgeon was then supposed to follow this wire to the marker, remove the suspect tissue, then close everything back up. They then take the tissue and send it over to the hospital. The hospital then sends me a bill for a couple hundred dollars. Some where in between there they examine the tissue and decide everything is not right. The cancer cells needs to be contained in the sample taken. But it seems that in my case there are more cancer cells running along my milk ducts of an indeterminable number.

So Dr Schuh is laying this all out for us with a crude cross section illustration a week later in her office. She has two recommendations. The first being a mastectomy with a plastic surgeon on site to reduce my left breast and insert an implant to the scooped out right side. The second option being a second procedure same as the first. Taking more tissue this time, probably leaving me with a gaping whole of a breast. Then if "successful" I will follow this with 6 weeks of monday - friday radiation. A commitment that really just makes me angry.

I ask "Well what if, option 3, I do nothing at all."

My mother gasps and begins to grow red in the face.

The doctor looks at me blankly, as if no one has ever asked such a ridiculous question.

I push further " Ten years? 5 years?" I'm good with both, no need to live forever. "Less than five years?"

She looks up, as my mother is starting to loose control of her emotions. "Not even, she says, the cancer is contained for now, but in less than two years, it will begin to spread rapidly through your body." then stands up to reach for some tissue for my mother who now has entered Joan of Arch mode. Offering her own 52 year old breasts to her god in place of my life I am so nonchalantly throwing under the bus.

I'm thinking that this whole process is going to end up costing me thousands of dollars, destroying the lifestyle I know and love, and thus extending my life by many years but now they are years filled with self doubt, years of hiding my chest from the mirrors I once stood in front of admirably, years of sex with shirts on if sex was even in the cards at all, my phantom right nipple longing to be caressed and sucked. I look at the cards in my hand. And really for a moment consider walking out. Talking my money and buying a plane ticket. Spending the next "less than two years" in some tropical remote location soaking up sun, and blowing all the bronzed muscular locals I could find.

And now my mother is full blown ballin'. And not the kind with gold chains and a bank roll. I have no choice but to make the next appointment. Schedule another surgery. At least I'd get more vicodine. And I drive home, down 270 bumper to bumper at 5pm on monday evening. But I don't cry. I think about dinner, about stopping for a block of Romona cheese and a bottle of medium grade wine i won't share with my roommate.

An attempt at documentation

There's been a lot of thoughts running around in my head. I'm not a writer but I wanted to try and get them down during this whole progress. I'm starting a bit late. Already many mammograms and one surgery into the damned thing, but you got to start somewhere, so I'm going to try and play catch up for a minute here.

Early December, I go to the gyno to renew my birth control prescription. A routine enough procedure. I like my gyno,late 40's maybe, tall dark, not Teen Pop sensation good looking but certainly easy on the eyes. For some reason I've always preferred male doctors. Especially when it comes to looking at my vagina. I suppose, really if you think about it, as a (sightly overactive) heterosexual sexual women, I'm pretty damned comfortable with a man peering between my spread thighs. Going through his normal series of check ups, he thinks he feels something in my left breast. And thus begins the ordeal.

I have an intense aversion to the medical industry. I don't like tests, I don't like xrays, the waiting rooms, the white coats, and always get in some sort of scuffle with the pharmacy counter at walgreens. So it took me a month or two to even make an appointment.

Hung over and probably extremely stoned I drug myself into metro imaging for my first mammography experience at the tender age of 29. Annoyance in my voice and attitude all over the place, I was strung through the procedure of breast torture.
Each time looking deeper and squeezing harder, contorting my upper body into variously positions as a 190 lb non english speaking nurse pressed against my body and pulled my breasts into various shapes and angles. Its as if they are made of silly puddy and we were transferring the sunday comics onto the underside.

The mystery "lump" my doctor thought he felt turned out to be nothing. The left breast, the bigger stronger, healthier of the two was given cancer clearance. The submissive right breast just along for the ride, suddenly and unexpectedly became the target of concern. Not a lump, something you could have only seen on the xray. They've found calcification! 98% percent of the time these things are nothing.

But the odds are never in my favor.

I do most of my crying in the car. On the way home from these procedures. When i'm alone, and I can turn the music to 10. By the time I arrive home I've conceded to death, dry my eyes, say "yo whats up" to my vagabond artist freeloading houseguest/roommate, and head towards the beer in the fridge. A serum that medicates but hardly solves any problems.

More appointments, more tests, a biopsy, a very purple boob, and then a phone call on a weekend morning while i'm spread out on my down comforter enjoying the sun beaming through my front window. I'm a terrible listener. Ad the phone to the equation and divide by news you don't want to hear anyway. And you get very little actual information out of the phone call. From it I took: I'm fucked. Something about stage 0, and lots of "its so good we found this now" Followed by a when do you want to schedule the surgery.

Surgery? WFT. no. thanks, I'll pass.

So I ignored shit for as long as possible. Fighting off phone calls from my father, mother, and grandmother, insisting I tell them more details and "push" to move things forward. I stopped answering most of their calls. And learned that about the impressive guilt involved with letting a call from your grandma go straight to voice mail.

So the thoughts in my head sort of goes as follows.
Fuck this.
Its my right to do nothing.
I'm divorced. have no kids. The only guy i actually want to hang out with is either retarded, or wants nothing do with me.
No one will ever want me now.
I need to loose twenty lbs and get a chin job, not waste money on a problem that is not even bothering me.

Fine I'll call the damn doctor.

I just want to get this over with so everyone stops asking about it and fucking telling me they are there for me. When actually how? Are you holding me at night saying everything is going to be ok, and are you lining up men who are into mastectomy scars to fuck me after all this is said and done. Are you helping me with the endless bills that are being pushed through the mail slot every after noon. Are you making my roommate sober up and get the fuck off the couch and make some money so I don't have to cover his half of the rent. I think no. no. you are just saying that shit to make yourself feel like you are a caring individual. so fuck off.

Of Course you can't say that. You have to make it seem like things are going to be okay. And you can't tell them you'd rather die than loose a nipple. Or endure the pain of massive reconstructive surgery. I'm strong, sure. but not that strong. And my weakest points are braided very tightly with my body image. My breasts are somewhere around a 34 F. They have driven and defined my personality and the world's perception of me. For good or bad. for my entire life.